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Chase: No Plans To Support CurrentC
- Thread starter AdonisSMU
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Chase isn't a retailer that can take advantage of shopping data mining and no credit card transaction fees so why did you ask them?
This. A bank wants to work with Apple Pay. Their credit card services still get paid.
Exactly. You give CurrentC your bank account info. Chase won't decline that. It's up to you to provide it.
Chase won't support it in the same manner that no bank will support it - banks only deal with ACH and nothing beyond that.
It goes CurrentC <-> ACH <-> banks. There is no direct relationship.
Regardless of whether they officially support CurrentC, there's nothing they can do to prevent the ACH transaction going through. You understand that right?
Well, they could, by blocking which ABA/Routing numbers they permit debits from and preventing CurrentC-associated debtors from receiving those ACH debits. But it would be a deliberate action, not unlike how Rite Aid and CVS deliberately crippled their NFC terminals.
Would it cause as much of a backlash? Hard to tell. On one hand, banks could reasonably argue that the amount of personal info you must hand over for CurrentC to work makes it a huge fraud risk and a liability. On the other hand, I suppose you could argue that if a person truly wanted to use CurrentC and willingly gave their bank account numbers, social security numbers and other personal info, then they deserve whatever they get.
Though of course, having a customer bellyache on the news about how the bank isn't covering their losses would put the bank between a rock and a hard place.
My point is more that you can't, as a bank, legally prohibit the customer from willingly using their checking account as they see fit.
The banks can do what they want. Read their terms when you get an account.
They can also just shut your account down. This happened to me on my business account with Chase. Just got a notice one day that they "can't keep" my account and that they don't have to tell me why. They gave me 30 days to withdraw my funds or else they'd send me a check for any balance after that.
Mind you I had a 5 figure balance and no strange transactions (checks from clients coming in and money moving into my PayPal account to pay my staff abroad... I moved a few hundred grand this way over several years so I dont know if that's what triggered it and if it did why it didn't happen sooner).
I read online from other people that anyone who has done Bitcoin transactions or used many other types of things has also had this happen.
So if they can at random shut down your bank account completely you can be sure they have the power to block or make difficult any service they want.
Granted their answer of "not supporting" this may just mean they won't do anything special for or against anyone, BUT if the banks wanted to block this and prevent retailers from getting around those 2.75% transaction fees, they could.
What ultimately wins is the money. It's the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rule. The only way to stop it is a popular revolt (aka consumer demand) but CurrentC doesn't strike me as the kind of service that will see widespread popular support.
On a side topic to this thread header...
Would it be possible for banks to equip their ATM machines with an NFC reader or a scanner, to let you use your phone AS your debit card to withdraw cash instead of presenting a physical card which could get skimmed?
Would it be possible for banks to equip their ATM machines with an NFC reader or a scanner, to let you use your phone AS your debit card to withdraw cash instead of presenting a physical card which could get skimmed?
How they can treat your account as a whole legally is different from how they treat ACH. You can set up a ACH with a known Nigeria scammer and they'd allow it.
Yeah, without knowing the detail I'd call that potentially suspicious activity. They may have gotten tired of monitoring your account for unusual activities involving moving money abroad.
I'd love that feature, but Apple would have to open NFC to third party apps such as the bank apps for that to happen and currently it's restricted to Apple Pay.
I've been hit 3 times for a couple thousand dollars. Of course BoA reimburses for fraud, but had to cancel one checking account, open another in its place, and change all debit card associated card numbers.
And to ramble some more, one entity that REALLY needs to cut down on fraud, is the IRS. Again, some sort of official government TouchID association with your social security number to file taxes would be great. I know 2 people personally that got screwed during tax filing. You know, like companies that send you a verification code to use a service? How about the IRS receive a verification code via TouchID associated with your SS# to complete a tax refund?
That would be a really slippery slope. You'd have to say how that ACH using entity was less secure than anybody else who has ACH. People give their account for all sorts of companies to draft.
A better approach would be to continually educate their customers about the protections available through the bank's debit/credit cards and highlight those protections will not be in place with CurrentC.
As mentioned above, anyone with a Chase account will be free to set up ACH with CurrentC. It was a bit illogical to ask Chase if they would "support" CurrentC.
My point was that if they don't like a company you deal with they'll just shut down your account. So you add CurrentC and sure it'll work but a month or two later you might get a notice saying they don't want you as a customer so they're shutting your account down. Could happen.
Already does happen to people who use Chase to transfer money to Bitcoin exchanges or gambling sites. They won't block the transfers individually but this obviously affects your ability to use the services long term which is even worse.
As for my account the transfers were to my own PayPal account. Then using PayPal I sent money abroad so that's no longer Chase's concern nor would they know how I spend my money on PayPal. It's no different than transferring money between two accounts you own.
Also, I transferred nearly 5 figures every month for about 4 years, so if they didn't like it they could have said something sooner. That's why I'm not even 100% sure if this was the cause though it's my best guess. When I called they were very adamant about how they don't have to tell me a reason and therefore will not.
Banks aren't going to go shutting down peoples' accounts for using ACH via CurrentC. Why not? Because it's not costing them anything and CurrentC is not an illegal operation nor a scammer.
Doing questionably shady things like sending large sums of money to questionably legal operations or oversees accounts raises the likelihood of the bank getting drawn into legal matters that will cost them time and money.
Doing some ACH transfers with another US business doesn't even come close to falling into the risk categories that your activities did.
Nothing strange sending money from my US bank account for business to my US PayPal account registered in the same business name and using the same EIN, in fact there's even preloaded Chase settings on PayPal to make transfers like this easy. There's no question of legality, they're perfectly normal transactions many businesses make all the time.
Also nothing strange about people buying BitCoins online either (though I didn't do this just referencing people who did it online).
No legal exposure for Chase in either case and tons of people online claiming their accounts were shut down.
My point is just that if Chase doesn't like people using their account in some way they'll shut your account down. I posted to counter the claim made earlier that there'd be legal issues if Chase tried to stop you from using your account as you please. They can stop you, and they routinely stop people.
They even close accounts of people whose occupations they don't like. For example if you work in the adult film industry, they won't let you even open a personal account to pay your bills with. There's quite a few industries that qualify for that kind of treatment from them.
The underlying point is no one is entitled to anything, especially from a bank. If you think they can't screw up your account or ability to bank there as if you have some legal protection or entitlement to do what you want with your bank account you are wrong.
You cannot do whatever you want with your bank account. You can only do what Chase likes or approves of.
If they shut down a few people for using CurrentC they'll discourage anyone from using it, and CurrentC will die. Chase has a horse in the race as they're a big CC provider that collects it's processing fees.
Not saying they'll do it just saying they can and I wouldn't put it past them and other major banks who are being cut out of fees.
Ok, so now we're just going into illogical anti-bank tirades. I'm not going to try to argue rationally against irrational points of view, so I'm out.